


You have already left kudos here. :)

by jessalae



Series: A series is a set of related stories, each of which is complete on its own. [1]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fans & Fandom, Alternate Universe - No Beast (The Magicians), Crack, Friendship, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:07:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27663806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessalae/pseuds/jessalae
Summary: Margo pulled out the book and stroked the cover. “Gorgeous,” she said. “So many fond memories of these books. I got so into them.”For a second Quentin seriously considered asking ifgot so into themmaybe translated intolooked for other fans onlinewhich maybe possibly could translate perhaps intoread and/or wrote fanfic. He squashed that impulse right the fuck down.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Series: A series is a set of related stories, each of which is complete on its own. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2100189
Comments: 69
Kudos: 180





	1. Prologue: September 2014

**Author's Note:**

> I have many people to thank profusely for this fic existing + various elements of it, but I'll put those acknowledgements in the end notes so I don't spoil anything accidentally. :)
> 
> The M rating is due to frequent references to and discussion of sex, but no sex actually happens onscreen.

Quentin had snoozed his alarm enough times now that Julia was definitely going to be knocking on his bedroom door in a minute if he didn’t just silence the damn thing and actually get up. He groaned and flailed one hand out to the side, yanking his phone off the charger and sliding his thumb across the screen to shut it up.

Before he could swing his feet over the side of the bed and stand up, though — which he had been intending to do immediately, definitely — he spotted an email notification. Pressing his thumb on it revealed the best possible subject line: _[AO3] Comment on And Weapons That You Use Against Me_.

“Fuck yeah,” he muttered to himself. “Gimme that sweet, sweet dopamine.”

The email opened, and his eyes widened, a grin spreading across his face. Talk about a fucking dopamine hit — she was back!

_**janethedestroyer** left the following comment on **And Weapons That You Use Against Me** :_

_HOT HOT HOT! Glad to see you haven’t lost your touch in the past month bb. You know I’m a total slut for there-was-only-one-bed, and this is fab. LOVE the little angst hit at the end, how do you even emotions so good, and I am ALWAYS here for pegging._

_(also sorry to have been AWOL, grad school was kicking my ASS but i should have a handle on it now. I didn’t miss you at all obviously. <3 <3 <3 times infinity.)_

_Okay, fave lines:_

He skimmed the rest of the comment, thrilling that she’d picked out his favorite joke about the talking horses. Then he clicked through to the fic and settled back down in bed to re-read it — because it’d been a while since this one had gotten any comments, he had to put some of those lines back in context in his brain, and hey, what was even the point of writing super niche, iddy _Fillory and Further_ porn if not to enjoy it himself?

* * *

_**makepeace** responded:_

_JANEJANEJANEJANEJANE I MISSED YOU SO MUCH!!!!1!!!eleventy_

_Thank you, as always, for your lovely comment. You know you are my muse for all things pegging, your scene in I’m In Trouble Deep was SO hot I just had to riff on the same theme. I did A/N credit for now, lmk if you’d rather i do the Inspired By thing and officially link it._

_So glad you enjoyed, and SO glad you’re back <3 <3 <3 watch me be all up in your LJ inbox catching up in 5… 4… 3...._

Margo closed the email and locked her contraband tablet as Eliot returned with martinis for them both. He sighed when he saw that she’d been online again. “Just promise me you’re not going to dive fully into the internet and have no time to hang out with me, Bambi,” he said, sitting carefully down next to her on her dorm bed.

“Of course I won’t,” she said. “I’m just catching up a bit right now. One of my best friends emailed me, I needed to read it real quick.”

“Does this other best friend make you perfectly mixed drinks on demand?” Eliot asked. “Does she know your deepest, darkest secrets?”

“ _He_ knows a hell of a lot about what turns me on, if that counts.” She sipped her martini. “Ooh, babe, easy on the olive juice next time. I’m a dirty girl, but not _that_ dirty.” When Eliot glared at her, clearly wounded, she smiled back, the soft, real smile she reserved just for him. “Relax. I’ve never had a problem balancing my regular social life with my online one. I’ll get into the rhythm in a day or two, you won’t even notice a difference.”

“I’d better not,” Eliot said. “You know I love that you have a secret nerd identity, but if it turns out you love this fanfiction thing more than you love me I might be tempted to let slip to Henry that someone’s got an illegal electronic device in here.”

“You could do that,” Margo said, nodding. “Or you could trust me.” She tapped him on the chest with the corner of the tablet. “And if you’re _very_ nice to me, I may even let you borrow it and give you the password to my CockyBoys subscription.”

Eliot raised an eyebrow. “You have both my trust and my attention.”


	2. Chapter 1

Margo had seen dozens of first-year boys fall for Eliot. Actually, she was pretty sure she’d seen more first-year boys fall for Eliot than she’d seen _not_ fall for Eliot. Margo was used to doing her wingwoman thing, being as intimidatingly hot as possible so Eliot seemed more approachable, getting to hear about or occasionally participate in a passionate night or two. Then, when El had had his fun with little Tyson or Brent or Eric, Margo would help him gracefully pass the kid off to some group of his classmates to be long-term friends with, and the two of them would go back to being fully absorbed in each other.

What she hadn’t seen before, and what she was finding even more entertaining than the usual pattern, was Eliot actually _resisting_ the temptation of one of his adorable wannabe bedwarmers.

“Okay,” she said, a week into the term, when she woke up with Eliot unexpectedly in her bed on a Saturday morning. “What is going _on_ with you?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Eliot said, continuing to scroll through Pinterest on her tablet, a calm, mildly amused expression firmly fixed on his face.

“I mean, Quentin was practically in your lap at the party last night, and yet here you are with me instead of trying to convince him he should suck you off because your come cures hangovers.” Margo eyed him as she stretched. “He’s into you, El. I know you know it. The kind of vibes that boy is putting out, usually you’d be balls-deep in that cute little ass in thirty seconds flat. So what’s up?”

“First of all, I know you’re aware that I care far too much about foreplay for that to be accurate.”

“Fine, tongue-deep, then.”

“Secondly… I don’t know, Bambi,” Eliot said. “I think I might want to keep this one.”

“What, like _date_ him?”

“God no. Keep him as a friend. He’s such a lost little puppy.” Eliot waved a casual hand. “I can get my dick wet elsewhere.”

Margo raised an eyebrow. It was way too early in the morning to have her world turned upside down like this. “You really think he’s worth it.”

“If it turns out he’s not, I’ll fuck him later in the semester.” Eliot frowned at her skeptical expression. “Look, if you’re allowed to have other close friends, I am too.”

“Okay, fair,” Margo said. “And speaking of, gimme that.” She took her tablet from Eliot and opened up her fandom email. Still no subscription alert for the latest chapter of makepeace’s WIP. She chewed on her lip, hoping he was doing okay. Usually he was religious about his Thursday evening updates. Maybe AO3 emails were all fucked up again? “I’ll play along with this Quentin thing,” she said absently as she opened her browser to check his page manually like a complete noob. “We’ll see how it goes. But if you decide you actually want to do the usual, you gotta tip me off. I don’t wanna get too attached to him and then have to let him go.”

_janethedestroyer replied to a LiveJournal entry “brooklyn sunset, august 31” in which makepeace said:_

_life’s rough rn but gotta say, the view from this apartment isn’t half bad_

_[sunset.jpg]_

_The reply was:_

_You good, babes? Haven’t heard from you in a hot second. mama needs her steady stream of porn and you’re not delivering._

_(for real tho. love and miss you. ping me so i know you’re okay. <3)_

* * *

The beginning of Quentin’s Brakebills education had been a whirlwind, to say the least. Suddenly being hundreds of miles from the city, having all his educational and career goals turned totally upside down — not to mention, uh, _learning that magic was fucking real_ — was kind of a lot to deal with. So he hadn’t really paid a ton of attention to the _logistics_ , after he passed his exam and had tried to wrap his head around the fact that he could _do magic_. Like _actually_. What the _fuck_.

He’d been in that reverie when an overly-cheerful administrator had asked for his address so his belongings could be automagically moved from where he’d been living before into his dorm room. Quentin’s head had been spinning, and he’d skimmed over the list she’d handed him of things he could have transported: clothes, toiletries, books, personal touches.

“Um, I need my laptop, too,” he’d said. “I don’t see that on the list.”

“Sorry, ‘fraid not,” the administrator had chirped. “Brakebills is a screen-free campus. No computers, phones, tablets, video games, none of that.”

“Um.” Quentin hadn’t liked that answer at all, but he’d been in no position to argue. He’d circled everything he’d wanted that _was_ on the list and there it had been in his room that evening, neatly packed into cardboard boxes with arcane scribbles all over them. All his books, his whole wardrobe, some snacks, his shampoo and razor and shaving cream, a few posters, his favorite duvet, his bedside lamp. No laptop in sight.

Amazingly, considering how many hours of his life he usually spent online, it took him a few weeks to really miss the internet. There was so much fucking new information to take in every day here, he probably wouldn’t have been able to handle looking at a screen for more than a few minutes anyway. But eventually he felt like he almost, not quite but _almost_ , had his feet under him, thanks in large part to the two upperclassmen who had inexplicably decided he was going to be their friend. So once he figured out why he still felt a little off-kilter, it just made sense to go to them and ask how to get off campus and get the rest of his stuff.

“What do you need to get?” Margo asked, sipping her margarita.

“Just, you know. Stuff,” Quentin said. They were lounging behind the Physical Kids Cottage, where Quentin spent the vast majority of his non-class time. Well, Margo and Eliot were lounging. Quentin was sitting with his legs tucked up under him, as usual. He was kind of tipped back against the reclined back of the lawn chair. So, that was close.

“Hm, delightfully cryptic,” Eliot said. “Did you not get all of your books over here on move-in day? You had too many and they exceeded the weight limit?”

“Leave your D&D dice at home?” Margo suggested. “Running low on well-loved flannels? No, wait— day of the week underwear. That’s gotta be it.”

Before Quentin could answer, Eliot gasped with delight. “Oh, Bambi, what if it’s sex toys? Is it sex toys?”

“No, Jesus,” Quentin said, feeling himself blush. Yeah, it’d be nice to grab those too — there had been a line item for “marital aids” on the moving list but no fucking way was he going to circle _that_ with the super-peppy vice dean of something-or-other staring him down — but that was not his priority, nor was it something he was going to admit to absurdly gorgeous, astronomically out-of-his-league Eliot. “I mostly just—” He looked around furtively, like Dean Fogg was going to be lurking in the fucking bushes, or something. “I wanted my laptop.”

“Oh.” Eliot sounded disappointed. “That’s boring.” He perked up again. “For porn?”

“God, no. Can you just— is there a way to go get things? I’d just need to go back to New York, it’s not like, all that far.”

“Distance is irrelevant, there are portals to anywhere you need to go,” Eliot said, waving a hand. “The trick will be getting it past the wards. They tend to send electronics on the fritz. We’ve got all sorts of spells to prevent that, you’ll just need to draw them on the case.”

“There’s no wifi, but some of the Knowledge nerds figured out a way to kind of tap in via magic,” Margo said. “It’s a little like using a dial-up modem, but with an incantation in Farsi instead of that fucking screeching noise.”

“And without anyone screaming at you for using the phone while their LimeWire downloads are running.”

So Quentin found time between classes to follow their instructions, hop through a portal to the city, pack up his laptop and charger (and, yes, the little bin of toys and lube hidden under his bed) and meet up with Eliot back near the portal to Brakebills so he could get him warded and on the network. And later that night, sitting on his bed with the shades pulled all the way down, watching his inbox load, he actually felt for a split second like he kind of had everything he needed in life.

_[8:45 pm]_  
_**janethedestroyer** : WELL LOOK WHO’S ONLINE AFTER FOR FUCKING EVER_  
_**makepeace** : i knooooooooooow i’m sorry_  
_**janethedestroyer** : i was worried when you missed two update days in a row_  
_**janethedestroyer** : you NEVER do that, you’re way too thirsty for comments_  
_**makepeace** : i repeat, i knooooooooooow i’m sorry_  
_**makepeace** : started grad school and it’s been a whole Thing. but i’m back now!_  
_**janethedestroyer** : you better be. _  
_**janethedestroyer** : (although i’ve totally been there, i get it) _  
_**janethedestroyer** : i have a new chapter of Another Day To Find You that desperately needs a beta. my pronouns are totally fucked and i think i gave Rupert two dicks possibly at one point_  
_**makepeace** : ...i could get behind that_  
_**janethedestroyer** : well yeah but i want to do it on PURPOSE_  
_**makepeace** : legit. send it over, i’ll work on it tonight after i read my ten zillion notifications_  
_**janethedestroyer** : you’re the bessssssst <3 <3_


	3. Chapter 2

_janethedestroyer replied to a LiveJournal entry “semi-monthly insecurity meltdown post, october 2015 edition” in which makepeace said:_

_Well folx, I’ve hit a wall again. Why do I even? What’s the point? Why do I write all this fucking pointless smut about a fucking children’s book series? I’m spending hours of my time doing this thing that yeah, I enjoy it, but what is it like contributing to the world? Does anyone else even enjoy it? All my stories are just the same fucking thing over and over and over again and they’re not even that good. Shouldn’t I be using my life to do literally anything else, even though almost nothing else actually makes me feel happy?_

_validate me plz i am struggling._

_(god i really need to refill my prescriptions don’t i)_

_The reply was:_

__

__ _Okay, as always, SNAP OUT OF IT, motherfucker. You are talented and beautiful and I will beat the everloving shit out of your jerkbrain until you realize that. Your stories are not the same thing over and over, I love every single one of them to pieces, even the ones you wrote specifically to troll me. And other people love them too! You are making the world a hornier, happier place and I will NEVER stop telling you how motherfucking great you are, just try and fucking stop me._

_also FUCKING CHRIST ON A CRACKER YES GO REFILL YOUR PRESCRIPTIONS YOU DICKWAD. FOR FUCK’S SAKE. I WILL END YOU. TAKE. YOUR. MEDS._

Even after nearly a month of friendship, Margo had only been in Quentin’s room maybe twice. _Quentin_ was barely in Quentin’s room when he could help it, even though Penny spent all his time off banging Kady. Just the possibility of Penny, the specter of him, was enough to make Quentin spend most of his time at the Cottage, or in the library, or out on the grass with Margo and Eliot enjoying the permanently nice weather.

But today he’d really needed a nap after an all-nighter followed by a grueling lab session, so he woke up sometime in the late afternoon to a brisk knock and Margo waltzing through his bedroom door without bothering to wait for an answer.

“Hey, sleepyhead. El’s trying a new recipe for dinner tonight, he sent me to invite you to join us.”

“Um.” Quentin blinked, trying to shake off the what-year-is-it post-nap fog. “Yeah, that sounds great. Uh. Lemme just—” He took a quick mental inventory, making sure he had pants on (yes) and got out of bed, scrubbing a hand over his face.

Margo was peering up at the _Fillory and Further_ poster he’d finally gotten around to sticking up on the wall. His heart sank a little, waiting for her to tease him about it. In retrospect, it had been a dumb thing to do, advertising his love of a fake magical world at a place where there was _literal real magic_ , where most people got their daily dose of fantasy just doing their homework, why had he even felt the need to—

“This is _great_ ,” Margo said, leaning closer. “This is the cover art from the 80s, right? The really pulpy weird edition?”

“Um. Yeah,” Quentin said, blinking stupidly.

“God, who the fuck thought it was okay to put that kinda rack on an illustration of a fourteen year old,” Margo said, looking skeptically at the drawing of Jane Chatwin. “Gross.”

“You, uh. You know— you’ve read—”

“The Fillory books? Yeah, like a dozen times.”

“Oh.” Quentin felt like his mind was spinning again. “Um, yeah. So. Yeah, that cover art, it’s kind of— it’s fucking gross, actually, like you said, it’s just the dragon is uh, kind of cool, and I bought the poster when I was like thirteen so like, at the time—”

“Relax, nerd boy,” Margo said, smiling at him. “That was the cover I had growing up. I, too, had plenty of teenage orgasms thinking about Jane Chatwin and her huge tatas. Zero judgment.”

Of all the absolutely mind-boggling things that had happened in the last forty-five seconds, that statement was. It was up there. “Huh,” Quentin said neutrally.

“They’re not the best series to try and have your sexual awakening to, but hey, I took what I could get.” Margo was turning, now, surveying the bookshelf he’d finally gotten around to filling. “Speaking of old editions, holy shit,” she said, sounding genuinely excited. She reached out to his first-edition copy of _The World In The Walls_ , then stopped. “Can I—”

“Yeah,” Quentin sputtered. “Sure. Of course. Anything for, um. A fellow nerd.” The second that last phrase was out of his mouth, he cringed and took a step back to be just a little further away from whatever retribution Margo was about to throw at him.

Margo pulled out the book and stroked the cover. “Gorgeous,” she said. “So many fond memories of these books. I got so into them.”

It must have been his surprise at not getting punched or hexed, or maybe it was the haze of sleep, but for a second Quentin seriously considered asking if _got so into them_ maybe translated into _looked for other fans online_ which maybe possibly could translate perhaps into _read and/or wrote fanfic_. He squashed that impulse right the fuck down and finished getting his hair back into some semblance of order in the mirror. “I mean if you want to read them again — I have a regular edition too, you could borrow that to read.”

“I have my copies in my room,” Margo said breezily. “But thanks. I’ll have to pull them out again, do a re-read. Now come on, if we’re not sitting at the table when Eliot’s ratatouille hits the ideal eating temperature he’s going to throttle us.”

* * *

“I’m telling you, El, he’s absolutely the type who would.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

Margo ticked the list off on her fingers: “Extreme nerd. Introvert with a small, close group of friends. Obviously smart as hell, since he’s here. And so quiet and awkward you just _know_ he’s got a serious freaky side.”

“None of that describes you, and you write fan fiction,” Eliot pointed out. Margo could _hear_ him pronouncing it as two words. He finished putting the final coat of dark green polish on his right thumbnail and did a quick one-handed tut over it to dry it faster. 

“You’re not the only one who had a serious glow-up in college,” Margo said. She waved a dismissive hand. “And I’ve always been an outlier. There’s just a vibe there. I can _feel_ it. He definitely writes fic.”

“And this matters to us because…”

“Well, for one thing, it makes me like him even more.” Margo watched Eliot swipe a precise layer of polish over his nail, careful not to drip any on his duvet. “It’s always fun to run into a fellow freak out in meatspace.”

“Dear god, tell me _that’s_ not what you call real life.”

“For another thing,” Margo continued, ignoring him, “I enjoy being right.”

“And you so often are.” Eliot finished his left hand and tutted the polish dry.

“Besides, even if you don’t want to fuck him, aren’t you curious about what kind of porn he would write?”

Eliot raised an eyebrow at her, clearly pretending he wasn’t curious. “Why would I read porn about books I never even finished?”

“Because it’s _hot_ , idiot. Here—” Margo picked up her tablet, which still had the credits of the Queer Eye episode they’d been watching up on the screen, and clicked through tabs until she found what she was looking for. She offered it to Eliot. “This is something my friend wrote. There’s edging, there’s deepthroating, one of them’s got a huge dick, _and_ they’re fucking in the throne room of the castle while there’s a royal ball in full swing in the next room, anyone could walk in on them. I’ve jerked off to it probably like fifty times.”

Eliot accepted the tablet, still feigning reluctance. “I don’t know who these characters are, though.”

“When you watch regular porn, do you care about the tragic backstory of the pizza delivery guy who’s about to get paid in dick? Just read it, asshole.”

Margo took the nail polish as Eliot settled down to read and folded herself forward to do her toes, hanging her feet over Eliot’s footboard to get a better angle. The silence was comfortable, just the occasional tap of Eliot’s finger against the screen, the rustle of Margo’s satin pajamas.

After a few minutes, Eliot cleared his throat. Margo looked back at him. He was holding the tablet strategically in front of his body, and his face was starting to flush.

“You see what I mean?” she asked.

“I do,” Eliot said hoarsely.

“You want me to go away now?”

“I do.”

“And leave the tablet?”

Eliot glared in response to her broad smirk. “If you don’t mind.”

Margo closed the bottle of nail polish and hopped off the bed. “If you finish the story before you, you know, _finish_ , you can click where it says makepeace and pick anything else he’s written. It’s good shit. Oh, and don’t get any jizz on my tablet.”

“Goodbye, Margo,” Eliot said firmly. His free hand was already sliding towards his waistband. Margo left him in peace. She’d come back for her tablet later. Maybe a lot later. Let him really explore the wonders her little corner of the internet had to offer.

_Anonymous_   
_I know nothing about any of this, but your friend Jane told me it’s polite to comment on fan fics that you enjoy, so you should know I, ah, *enjoyed* this immensely. Several times._

_ makepeace _   
_Wow, hahaha! I’m glad you liked it. And yeah, jane’s great with fandom etiquette. Definitely listen to her if you’re going to get more into it._

_Anonymous_   
_I don’t really intend to get more into it, but I will certainly be reading more of your back catalog. Your descriptions are extremely on point. Especially the deepthroating. You’ve sucked a few cocks in your day, I can tell._

_ janethedestroyer _   
__ _okay that is QUITE enough of that, stop fucking hitting on my friends you dickwad. sorry about him, mp, he thinks he’s so cute_

_ makepeace _   
_haha no worries :)_


	4. Chapter 3

Quentin’s fingers were sore. His fingers were sore, and his head ached half the time, and he was pretty sure he was losing his voice trying to gargle his way through the Azerbaijani incantations for the minor healing charms they’d been working on in Practical Applications. He paid as much attention in class as he could, took notes as fast as his aching hands could move, practiced and studied late into the night, downing definitely too much instant coffee every morning since it was the easiest thing to mix up in his dorm room. At least he had his meds back, after another trip to New York to get them, so his energy level was kinda-sorta stabilized.

His free time ideally would have given him a chance to relax — and sometimes it did. Sometimes he got to hang out and talk YA books with Alice, or kick Todd’s ass at poker, or chill on the Cottage patio while Eliot grilled burgers for dinner and Margo regaled them both with tales of her misspent youth as a poor little rich girl. Sometimes he could just lay on a picnic blanket on the Sea with the eternally nice Brakebills sun beating down on him, breeze blowing through his loose hair, and take a nap. Sometimes, being here was really great.

On the other hand, sometimes it was like today.

He wasn’t sure what about today was different, exactly, except maybe that Eliot was wearing this _shirt_ — and he had a lot of really gorgeous shirts, and a lot of shirts that were objectively ridiculous but looked gorgeous on him specifically, but this one was— Quentin thought it had to be the source of all his problems today. It was deep royal blue with the narrowest of silver pinstripes, several buttons open in the front to show off a thatch of dark chest hair, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Quentin tried to sip his mojito as slowly as possible, wishing he’d just asked for a lemonade, because his eyes kept drifting to Eliot’s forearms as he busily flipped skewers of chicken on the grill, or the hollow of his throat when he threw back his head to laugh at some joke Margo made. He couldn’t stop thinking about what those smooth expanses of skin would taste like. Whether Eliot would enjoy it if he licked them. What kind of sounds he might make, a low chuckle or a pleased hum deep in his chest.

Quentin knew he shouldn’t be letting his thoughts wander in that direction. If Eliot wanted to fuck him, he would have asked by now. Quentin had heard the rumors, he’d seen Eliot at parties, crossed paths with a wide variety of guys walk-of-shaming it out of the Cottage on weekend mornings. Eliot obviously didn’t think of him that way, so Quentin needed to do his part and not think of Eliot that way.

He was deep in contemplation, mostly trying to convince himself not to stare too hard at the pale column of Eliot’s neck, when some bit of banter wormed its way through his distraction, and he heard, “—definitely omega, he fucking reeks of it.”

Quentin’s brain did a complicated loop-de-loop from _friend too hot_ through _a/b/o?_ and down into _dear god no just be normal_ and he choked on his sip of mojito, coughing. 

Margo eyed him, frowning. “You good?”

“Yeah, sorry, just um—” Quentin coughed. “—went down the wrong way. What were you saying?” 

“We’re trying to figure out how to break into Todd’s room and pour his awful new cologne down the sink so he stops inflicting it on us. You in?”

Okay, so Omega was probably the name of the cologne, or the brand, or something. Quentin put things back in context and his heart stopped pounding so weirdly in his chest, like he was about to be _found out_ or whatever. “Like, now?”

“After dinner,” Eliot said sternly, pointing his barbecue tongs from Margo to Quentin and back, glaring at them over his sunglasses. Quentin swallowed hard. “I need your thoughts on this marinade.”

“That’s fine,” Margo said. “Q here’s gonna need a lot more liquid courage before he comes on a heist with us, I think.”

“No, uh,” Quentin said, holding his almost-empty glass closer to his body to hide it better. It wasn’t a good idea for him to drink much more right now, not with his fantasies spiraling out of control like they were today. “I’m good. I probably can’t, actually, I’ve got this project to finish by the end of the week, I should go like, right after we eat.”

“Ah,” Margo said, nodding sagely. “PWP?”

Quentin choked again on his mojito, to the point where he was pretty sure he swallowed an ice cube whole. “Uh— no? What— I— wait.” He took a deep breath, pounding on his chest to try and clear away the panicked confusion. “Sorry, uh— repeat what you just said again?”

Margo was side-eyeing him bigtime. “Your project? Is it for Principles of Weather Prediction?”

“No,” Quentin said, simultaneously immensely relieved and immensely embarrassed. “Beginning Numerology.”

“Right,” Margo said, snapping her fingers. “Weather Prediction’s a second term class, not first term. I always forget how much of a little baby you are.”

“Come now, Bambi,” Eliot said. “Don’t be like that. Our Q’s a big boy.” He shot Quentin a teasing grin, raising one eyebrow.

Quentin only just managed to stand up from his chair instead of falling on his fucking face. “Actually I, uh, think maybe I should go now? I just— I remembered that project is uh, maybe more complicated than I thought, and I told Kady I’d. We could study, um—” He was already halfway across the patio, backing away from his poor bemused friends. “Sorry, I’d really like to— try this recipe some other time I’llcatchyoulater—” He turned and hustled away.

God. That could not possibly have been less smooth. He was going to have to come up with an excuse for that disaster, and a good one. But it had been worth it to get out of there _fast_. Between the late afternoon sun, the mojito, Eliot’s shirt, his dumb brain misinterpreting everything Margo said, and then Eliot _flirting with him_ as a joke (“big boy,” Jesus fucking Christ, of all the stupid cliche phrases, why did Eliot have to pick one that was a direct hit to Quentin’s libido) — he counted himself lucky to have gotten away with just the small-scale diaster.

Tomorrow would be better. It had to be. He’d survive the rest of today by grabbing something to eat at the cafeteria, finishing this Numerology project, then jerking off and going to bed early. Or maybe jerk off first, then the rest of it. Or— he’d had this plot bunny for a couple days, maybe he could just write that real quick, _then_ jerk off etc. etc. That would probably calm him down best, getting to put all his jitters into something creative, re-center himself a little. He’d do that, and then tomorrow would be better.

_Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post Canon, Adult Rupert Chatwin, Adult Lance Morrison, First Time, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Resolved Sexual Tension, Body Worship, Cock Worship, Oral Sex, Blowjobs_

_Notes:_

_Um, so, idk what even happened here (since I’m definitely not channeling my immense crush on my ridiculously pretty friend into smutfic, nuh-uh, that’s not what this is) but… have a PWP?_

_Thank you to janethedestroyer for always being around to listen to me scream and to last-minute beta my utter bullshit. Would not be getting through life right now without your support. <3 <3_

* * *

_[2:52 pm]_  
_**janethedestroyer** : hey babe_  
_**janethedestroyer** : got a fuckin weird question for you if you have a min  
**makepeace** : my fave kind, what’s up?_  
_**janethedestroyer** : do boners float?_  
_**makepeace** : ...you know i actually don’t know the answer to that off the top of my head_  
_**janethedestroyer** : well can you find out for me_  
_**makepeace** : i was just gonna say, gimme like fifteen minutes to hit the bathroom lol_

_[3:41 pm]_  
_**makepeace** : OKAY sorry, bathroom was occupied_  
_**janethedestroyer** : don’t lie, you just couldn’t get it up cuz you’ve been jacking off too much thinking about pretty friend_  
_**makepeace** : lmfao why do i tell you anything_  
_**makepeace** : you should be nice to me when i’m doing weird fic research with my dick for you_  
_**makepeace** : but the answer is no they do not_  
_**makepeace** : soft dicks apparently don’t either_  
_**makepeace** : unless i have an UNUSUALLY dense penis_  
_**janethedestroyer** : that should be your first pickup line for pretty friend_  
_**janethedestroyer** : “hey baby, wanna see how unusually dense my cock is?”_  
_**makepeace** : i am logging off now_  
_**janethedestroyer** : ilu don’t leave me_  
_**makepeace** : ilu too i just have class_  
_**makepeace** : i mean like class where i sit and learn things not class as in i’m fancy and you’re trashy  
**janethedestroyer** : i knew what you meant, we’re both trashy af <3 <3 <3_

Margo found Quentin curled up in the window seat in the common room of the Cottage, well-worn copy of _The Girl Who Told Time_ in his lap, thoroughly absorbed in the last third of the book.

“Glad you’re settling in,” she said as she wandered over. “Getting all cozy.”

Quentin looked up and gave her a tentative smile. “It’s really nice right here.” 

He’d been a little skittish around her lately, but since he’d moved into the PKC a couple days ago, he seemed to be letting his guard down again. Margo knew his nervousness was her fault. Thinking back on it, trying to startle him into proving her right with strategically-placed fandom terminology had been a fucking terrible idea. So she’d decided to take it down a notch, work on just being friends for a while. Maybe that would be the key to discovering all his dirty secrets.

“Enough room for two?” she asked, holding up her battered paperback of _The Secret Sea_ like a peace offering.

Quentin’s smile widened into an actual grin. God, he was sickeningly adorable. “Sure, I think so.” He scooted back, pulling his legs in tighter so she could sit facing him, tuck her own legs up under her body. “Working on that reread?”

“Almost finished,” Margo said. “I always get stuck on _The Flying Forest_. But I’m past it now, thank fucking god.”

“I know what you mean,” Quentin said, wrinkling his nose. “That part where Sir Hotspots is just monologuing about the ticking noise—

“—for like twenty pages, yeah,” Margo said, nodding along. “I should learn to just skip it, but there’s such a good little bit in the middle—”

“—with Rupert’s tree!” Quentin beamed at her, then frowned, looking thoughtful.

“What?”

“I just wouldn’t have figured,” he started, then trailed off.

“That I’m such a massive nerd?” Margo grinned at him. “I’m full of surprises.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Quentin said, still seeming a little lost in thought.

Margo could guess what he was thinking about: that bit with Rupert’s tree was infamous in fandom, the source of like seven different pieces of fanon of varying levels of dirtiness. Just about every F&F smutfic writer had done a Rupert-and-Lance-find-the-tree-again fix-it story at some point, and somehow the fandom never got tired of them, every new one would do numbers.

Of course, it was also a notably fun moment in an extremely fucking boring part of the book, so any fan of the series, ficcer or no, would probably know about it. So there was some plausible deniability there. Margo watched a mental argument play out across Quentin’s face, his eyebrows doing all sorts of fascinating things, almost holding her breath to see what he’d say.

In the end, he just smiled at her again and raised his book a little bit. “Sorry, gonna get back to this. They just got into the caves.”

Margo waved a hand to urge him on. “Go, go, do it.” She settled down against the pillows and cracked open her book, diving back into the story.

It was surprisingly comfortable, sitting here in silence except for the occasional page flip or huff of laughter at a funny line. They were both short enough that they could actually fit together on the seat with just their feet overlapping. The sun was just starting to set, not yet casting weird shadows into the room. Margo thought to herself, as she flipped past an illustration to the next chapter, that maybe this is what it would have been like if she’d had friends as a kid who were into the same books she was. Maybe she’d have spent afternoons curled up in her four-poster bed with some shy girl or soft-spoken boy, reading together, sharing theories and imagining different ways the story could go. Maybe she’d have been a totally different kind of fan if she’d met fellow fans that way instead of trawling the internet as a horny tween and finding all the people who were just as depraved as she was. She liked where she’d ended up — but it was interesting to imagine. Like an AU of her own life.

Eventually Quentin’s stomach rumbled loud enough that Margo noticed. She looked up at him, and he made a sheepish face.

“Skipped lunch,” he said. “Everything in the cafeteria had beets in it, and I wasn’t feeling it.”

“You’d think with the zero money we pay in tuition they could afford better catering,” Margo said. “Now that you live here, you should just raid our salad stash. Eliot makes a ton on the weekends when he’s putting off his Astronomy problem sets, puts a stasis charm on them in the fridge so they don’t get all wilty. I’ll get him to give you the ward key so you don’t get zapped.”

“Oh,” Quentin said, sounding surprised. “Thanks. Um, I’ll probably do that. Not a big salad guy, but, I can learn.”

“For you, I bet he’d even give in to the processed carbs and make sandwiches,” Margo said.

Quentin smiled nervously, and— yeah, that was definitely a little bit of a blush. He was trying to hide it, but there was something there. God, why didn’t Eliot just go for it already? The UST was fucking deadly. “That’d be nice.”

Margo shut her book and stretched, rolling out her neck. “It’s basically dinner time. I’m gonna portal out for pizza, I think. You in?”

“Definitely.” Quentin’s stomach growled again, and he looked embarrassed. “Uh, soon?”

“Soon can be arranged.” Margo stood and offered him a hand. “Go put on some decent fucking clothes. It’s cold out in the real world.”


	5. Chapter 4

_Makepeace Gmail added comments to the following document: smutswap assignment 2015_

_[feeding his cock into Rupert’s swollen mouth]_

_Makepeace Gmail_   
_I know it’s what your recip prompted but I would not be doing my due diligence as a beta if I didn’t point out that this position sounds awkward as hell? Like, the Watcher Woman is riding him but also Lance is standing over him fucking his face so like, is Lance’s ass just full on in the Watcher Woman’s face? (not that she would mind but like. consider.) is Rupert’s head even at the right height to suck Lance’s cock? Is Lance really going to be able to keep his balance standing on a mattress that’s presumably moving since they’re fucking? Idk, i’m just having a really hard time suspending disbelief for this one._

_Jane H_   
_Fuck you, i wanted to ignore all of these very reasonable points but you got in my fucking head. Damn it. will consider and rework._

_Jane H_   
_okay i put rupert flat on his back and lance on his knees over rupert’s chest, that should help?_

_Makepeace Gmail_   
_oh yeah that’s way better, love it. plus that way ww can talk with lance more easily and you can really lean into the rupert-as-human-fuck-toy vibe you have going which is HOT AF GOD JANE I NEED A MINUTE_

_Jane H_   
_fuck yeah. ty ty <3_

The disappointment of not having a defined discipline was a little bit diminished by the fact that Quentin was now housemates with his best friends. That had to be a good thing, right? He could see them at meals, take advantage of Eliot’s considerable skill in the kitchen. He had his own room, fucking _finally_. And this way Margo and Eliot were just a hallway or a short flight of stairs away, if he needed help or wanted to hang out or whatever.

It did _also_ mean that Margo and Eliot were just a hallway or a short flight of stairs away when _they_ wanted to see Quentin, which was sometimes great, and sometimes — less great. Case in point, Quentin had been planning to have a quiet Friday night in, just him and his laptop and his Marked For Later page and his newest silicone friend, which had arrived in the mail earlier in the week. There hadn’t been a party planned when he’d shut his door earlier in the evening. But now it was a couple hours later, and judging by the hammering on his door, plans had changed.

“Quentin!” Eliot yelled through the door. “I know you can hear me, your wards are terrible! Come join the party!”

Quentin considered pretending that he wasn’t there, then realized Eliot could probably see the light from his bedside lamp under the door. He should’ve just been reading by the light of his laptop screen like the basement-dweller he was at heart. “I’m tired,” he yelled back. “You don’t want me at the party.”

“I always want you at the party.” Quentin firmly squashed down the little thrill Eliot’s words gave him. He was so _flirty_ , with Quentin and Margo both. Quentin really had to work on getting over it. “Just come for a little while.”

Quentin chewed on his tongue a little, weighing his options. Eliot wouldn’t push it, if Quentin really said no. But if he went to the party, he could hang out with Eliot and Margo. Maybe just for a little while. Maybe have a drink, watch them dance. Be a supportive friend.

When he opened the door, Eliot’s face lit up. He was what Quentin had come to think of as “artfully disheveled,” a look he always adopted a few hours into a party — top couple of buttons on his shirt undone, hair curled wildly yet still beautifully over his forehead, face lit up with whatever he’d been getting fucked up on. “Come on, nerd boy,” he said. “Come live a little.” 

Quentin carefully closed the door behind him just in case Eliot was somehow going to look through his bed and see the dildo and bottle of lube he’d stuck in his bedside drawer for safekeeping. Eliot was already headed down the stairs, though, beckoning Quentin to follow him.

Eliot wove his way through the party, Quentin sticking close to him to stay in the gap that naturally appeared in the crowd wherever Eliot went. They worked their way through the common room, past the bar cart where Eliot filled a glass from a pitcher of bright red liquid, sipped it, made a face, added a splash of something, then handed it to Quentin. Then into a more secluded corner, past people who sat chatting, laughing, over to where Margo was lounging beautifully on a leather sofa.

“There’s our boy,” she said, beaming at Quentin and patting the seat next to her. Quentin took a gulp of his drink to make sure it wasn’t so full that it would splash when he sat down. He curled himself onto the sofa beside Margo, tucking his feet under him and getting comfortable. As soon as his legs hit the leather, the sound of the music became muted, distant. He looked at Margo curiously.

“Dampening charm on the couch,” she said by way of explanation. “So we can talk without yelling our heads off.”

Eliot, mercifully, took the seat on Margo’s other side. Well, kind of mercifully. This way Quentin had to _look_ at him to have a conversation with both of them. The dim, colorful lights played over his crisp white shirt, highlighted blue undertones in his hair. But at least they weren’t touching. That was helpful.

“You’re not bartending tonight?” Quentin asked.

“I was earlier,” Eliot said. He gestured to Quentin’s drink. “That’s a new creation. If you like it, I’d love to hear it. If you have criticisms, keep them to yourself and what do you know anyway.”

“It’s delicious,” Quentin said honestly, taking another drink. It went down smooth and sweet, the kind of drink that you wouldn’t think twice about having another of, but was probably strong enough to knock out an elephant. Dangerous stuff. He could feel the alcohol warming his skin already.

“We’re people-watching,” Margo said. Her clever eyes swept the room. “Looking for any good gossip. Like, see—” She nodded towards a couple who sat together by the bookshelves, heads bent in close conversation. “—Marissa there has a girlfriend, but she’s on a two-week exchange at a school in Iceland. I’m pretty sure they officially called a break, but on the off chance they didn’t, good information to have.”

“Marissa’s excellent at Illusion work, so any intel we can use to get her to give us her lab notes is worth it,” Eliot said conspiratorially. “And over there, by the stairs, the guy who looks high off his ass? He’s been on academic probation all semester. Supposed to be getting sober. I don’t think it’s working well. I tried kicking him out of parties for his own good when I first found out, but he keeps figuring out new ways in, and I can respect that kind of commitment to self-destruction.”

“Ooh, El, Guillermo’s got another one,” Margo said suddenly, sounding delighted and smacking Eliot lightly in the chest.

Eliot closed his eyes. “Don’t tell me. Undercut, lip piercings, wallet chain, under five-foot-three?”

“Yes, no, yes, yes,” Margo said. Eliot swore under his breath and looked where she was pointing. “He’s got a more specific type than anyone I’ve ever seen,” Margo told Quentin. “It’s honestly fascinating to see how close he always sticks to it.”

“She’s got a Monroe, that absolutely counts as a lip piercing, Bambi.”

“You said piercing _s_ , plural, I know you were thinking snakebites.”

Quentin listened to them banter, picking apart people’s outfits, tsking over a girl clearly on the rebound from a boy who hadn’t at all deserved her. He finished his drink, and Eliot immediately had another one ready for him.

“Damn,” Margo said wistfully, looking somewhere past Quentin’s head. “Elijah showing off how flexible he is again. He’s just gotta rub it in our faces, huh?”

“Bambi, it’s nothing personal,” Eliot said, gazing in the same direction. Quentin looked at him, his heart suddenly pounding at the raw desire in Eliot’s eyes. Holy shit. He quickly looked away, following Margo’s gaze to the dance floor, where an extremely attractive guy was somewhat literally dancing circles around his partner. Quentin watched him gyrate, his bare chest toned and shimmering with sweat, and got a little lost in a brief fantasy.

He was drawn back to himself by Margo saying sadly, “I know, I know. I just wanted more than a night. You really think we went too hard?”

“He could barely walk, darling. There’s such a thing as too much of a good thing.”

Quentin made the mistake, then, of looking back at them with a confused expression, not sure what they were talking about. The wicked smile that spread across Margo’s face made him realize what a bad move that had been.

“We fucked him,” Margo clarified, as if her smirk hadn’t communicated that clearly enough. “El and me. We share hookups sometimes.”

“Usually we’re better about not scaring them off,” Eliot said, “but he’s _excellent_ in bed. And he’s just Margo’s type. We may have gone a little overboard.”

“He was perfectly capable of taking my strap-on,” Margo argued, turning to him. “It was your monster cock that tipped him over the edge.”

“He loved it,” Eliot countered. “You’re the one who insisted on riding him while I fucked him, that definitely took things too far. I don’t even know whose name he was screaming, at the end.”

Margo waved a hand. “Things can get messy, in a threesome.” She sipped her drink daintily, settling back into her seat. “You know how it is, Q.”

Quentin, whose entire body was about to erupt in flames of embarrassment and also horniness, emphatically did not know how it was. “Uh,” he said, somehow managing to stutter over that single syllable. “Uh.”

“Or don’t you?” Margo asked, sly. “That’d make sense, I guess. You’re shy. Always trying to fly under the radar.” She cocked her head to the side. “You’ve had sex, though.”

“Uh,” Quentin said again. “Yeah.” How did they get on this topic? How could he get them onto literally any other topic in existence?

“Good,” Margo said firmly. She started to say something to Eliot, then turned back to Quentin. “Good sex? Not just mediocre drunk sex?”

“Jesus. Yeah?” Quentin drained his drink just to have something in his mouth and avoid talking for a second, then regretted it as soon as the heat of the alcohol washed over him. Margo and Eliot were staring at him expectantly, for some reason. “What?”

“So, spill,” Margo said. “When, with who, how? You heard about our escapades, now it’s your turn to share.”

“I don’t remember ever agreeing to that,” Quentin’s mouth said without any intervention from his brain, which was fully sirens and panic alarms at this point.

“It’s only fair, Q,” Eliot said, as if _Quentin_ were the one being unreasonable here.

“Um.” Quentin took a deep breath, the room swimming a little around him. He wished he’d taken off his sweatshirt before coming downstairs, he was unreasonably hot in the crowded room, but now would be the absolute worst moment to start shedding layers. “I don’t, what do you— people I dated? In college? And like, hookups, sometimes, just a couple times. That was more of the, uh, mediocre drunk s-sex kind of thing, I guess—” What temperature was it where you were supposed to go to the emergency room before your brain boiled in your skull? He was pretty sure he was reaching that kind of temperature right now, with Margo and Eliot’s curious eyes boring into him. “I don’t— that’s all I’m saying. That’s, uh, I’m— I’m not going to kiss and tell.”

Margo sighed. “Fine,” she said, “deprive me of my entertainment.” Quentin stared at her, stricken, and she laughed and punched him lightly on the shoulder. “I’m kidding, Q. You don’t actually have to tell. Although if you want to, I’m _always_ here to listen.”

“I’m not,” Eliot said firmly, “unless it’s something _really_ kinky.”

“No, uh,” Quentin said, his heart thumping wildly in his chest as his brain played a rapid-fire slideshow of all his kinkiest fantasies, slotting Eliot neatly into all of them. “Um.” He tried to take a sip from his glass before he remembered he’d finished it a second ago.

“Don’t look now, Bambi,” Eliot said suddenly, his voice dropping low as he leaned forward to talk into Margo’s ear, “but guess who decided to show her face?”

Margo gasped. “She did _not_.”

“She certainly did.”

Quentin slumped back against the sofa, feeling weirdly exhausted as the adrenaline of excruciating embarrassment wore off. Now that the conversation was over, it really wasn’t at all surprising that these two would just out-of-the-blue ask about his sex life. It was kind of more surprising that it had taken them this long, honestly.

He wished he’d said something a little more coherent. Not that he wanted to kiss and tell, but like, they were never going to meet any of his college hookups, so what was the harm? Just give them a little bit of detail: _my ex-girlfriend from sophomore year was amazing at giving head_ , or _this guy I hooked up with talked about bringing in his friend but things kinda fizzled before we ever got there_. Something to let them know he wasn’t a complete virgin, but that his experiences weren’t interesting enough to be worth their attention.

There was no way he’d ever have said either of those things, though, not _out loud_. He was awful, just awful, at talking about sex. It was a big reason so many of his experiences _had_ been mediocre. Put him in front of a laptop, he could wax poetic about eating pussy or spend a thousand words describing precisely how he liked his ass fucked, but try to make a single word about it come out of his actual mouth? Nope. Nuh-uh. Forget it.

There were long fingers taking his empty glass out of his grasp, then. He looked down and saw Eliot prying it out of his hand, smiling fondly at him. His fingers dragged over the side of Quentin’s hand. Quentin’s heart started beating double-time. He sternly told it to knock it the fuck off.

“You look a little lost,” Eliot said. “Too much of a good thing?”

Quentin stared into his hazel eyes and attempted to recover the power of speech. “Yeah, um, it was— really good, but I think I should. I kinda want to go back upstairs?” God, was he asking permission to go to his own damn room? These two had really gotten under his skin.

“Fair enough. You were a good sport with the mandatory socializing, I release you from your obligation. Go be a hermit with my blessing.” Eliot lounged back against the couch, pulling Margo down against him, and actually _blew Quentin a kiss_ , grinning at him.

Quentin floundered, wondering if he was supposed to — pretend to catch it? Blow one back? What was the etiquette for air kisses with your absurdly hot friend who you were really trying your best not to have the hots for? Was there even etiquette for that? He settled on a little wave, to Eliot and Margo both, and turned around to shoulder his way back through the party up to the safety of his room.

* * *

Margo leaned heavily against the rough bark of their favorite tree. They had five minutes before their Illusions for Non-Illusionists class officially started, which meant they had about fifteen before the professor would actually expect them to be skulking in. Plenty of time for Eliot to smoke, and for Margo to confront him about his poor life choices with regard to one Quentin Coldwater. “El, babe, I think you gotta put him out of his misery.”

“Are you suggesting that my dick can be lethal?”

“Without a whole lotta lube, actually yes,” Margo said. “You didn’t see his little face while you were cooking last night. I thought he was gonna cream himself when the brownies were in the oven and you licked the spoon.”

Eliot offered her his cigarette, and she took a long drag. “I did see his face, actually,” he said, his tone overly casual. “He’ll get over it, though. He’ll jerk off thinking about me a thousand times and then on the thousand-and-first, poof, it’ll be done, he’ll be bored.”

“Is that seriously what you want, though?”

“Well, what would you suggest as the alternative, Margo?” Eliot was clearly actually annoyed with her if he was using her real name. “A _relationship_? I thought we agreed we don’t do those.”

“We don’t do those _without mutual approval_ ,” Margo corrected. “I’m saying you have my approval. You should go for it.”

“Your approval is only half the equation,” Eliot muttered, taking his cigarette back.

“And what, you’re a bad wingman for yourself? Don’t think you can actually get it up if you have to remember the guy’s name in the morning?”

“The inverse. I worry I’m so focused on getting it up I won’t be able to remember his name in the morning the way he deserves.” Margo gave that disaster of a sentence the skeptical look it so thoroughly deserved, and Eliot gestured impatiently at her. “Metaphorically. I’ve never been— good at longer term things. I don’t like setting myself up to fail.”

“Fail? He’s fucking _gagging_ for you.”

“That part I don’t dispute,” Eliot said. He ground out the remains of the cigarette under his heel and immediately pulled out another one. “But it doesn’t mean I can actually be good for him. If a friend ever had the poor judgment to ask me for dating advice, _steer clear of day-drinking playboys with theater degrees_ would probably be the first thing I said. Personal experience, and all that.”

“You really are a terrible wingman for yourself,” Margo said slowly, staring at him. Eliot eyed her and took a long drag on his cigarette. “So let me show you how it’s done. You’re a day-drinking playboy with a theater degree, yes, but you’re also a talented magician, a great cook, real fucking easy on the eyes. You’ve got empathy coming out your ears, your heart is full of stupid soft squishy emotions all the time. And once you get yourself set on a project, you’re not gonna give it up.”

“All lovely sentiments,” Eliot said shortly. “How is any of that going to help me not fuck up, if I risk this? And it _will_ be a risk.”

“Make it your project,” Margo said. “Make Quentin your next great party, your Encanto tribute. That ridiculous corset vest you spent fucking forever on last term.”

“It is not _ridiculous_ , it’s gorgeous. It turned out perfectly.”

“So put that same energy into being a good boyfriend or whatever, and you got this.” Eliot was reaching for another cigarette, but their time was almost up, so Margo put a firm hand on his wrist, starting to draw him away from the tree. “I’ll stop bitching at you about it if you want,” she said, as she tucked his arm into hers and walked them down the path. “I’m just saying. You wouldn’t fuck it up. And god knows the boy probably needs some decent dick.”

“I’ll take that into consideration,” Eliot said. “I don’t know that he’d particularly like to receive it from _me_ , though. Maybe he’d rather keep the friendship and get his dick elsewhere.”

“Just ask him, then, idiot.”

Eliot snorted. “Really, Bambi? You and your Quentin-secretly-writes-fantasy-erotica obsession are going to lecture _me_ about asking him honest questions?”

“Dick,” Margo said, “but you’re right. Honest questions are for suckers. We’ll just have to find a way to make him tell us what we want to know.”

_**janethedestroyer** left the following comment on **They’re The Lucky Ones** :_

_Off-the-charts hot like always, but fucking OUCH, mp, how dare you make me feel all these feelings. you’re on a fucking roll with these angsty one-shots lately, my heart is in goddamn tatters. next one’s gotta have less pining, more cocksucking, mmkay? Your High Queen of Filth-ory demands it, or i might actually die. i’ll be back with a more coherent comment after I go cry in my pillow like i’m fifteen again._


	6. Chapter 5

_[6:28 pm]_  
_**makepeace** : you’re online, yay!_  
_**janethedestroyer** : yeah but just for a sec, unfortunately_  
_**janethedestroyer** : finals week is imminent and it is eating my entire ass   
**makepeace** : i get the sense that you don’t mean that in the fun way_  
_**makepeace** : (also hard same)_  
_**janethedestroyer** : rly rly not the fun way_  
_**makepeace** : i may be online a lot more soon if i flunk out of grad school. silver lining?_  
_**janethedestroyer** : you’re not gonna flunk you idiot_  
_**janethedestroyer** : you’re too smart for that_  
_**makepeace** : | janethedestroyer [6:30:47 PM] you idiot <— literally the previous thing you just said_  
_**makepeace** : can’t be both, now can i_  
_**janethedestroyer** : [bothisgood.gif]_  
_**janethedestroyer** : you can too_  
_**janethedestroyer** : what happened to “it’s biphobic to make me choose anything”_  
_**makepeace** : lmao_  
_**janethedestroyer** : anyway i am v excited for winter break so i can get FFBB running again_  
_**makepeace** : YES that was exactly what i was wondering_  
_**makepeace** : lmk if you need co-mod help_  
_**janethedestroyer** : oh i was assuming you’d help with artist wrangling again_  
_**janethedestroyer** : you were the only reason any of those fuckers got assigned properly last time lmao_  
_**janethedestroyer** : i NEED you_  
_**makepeace** : you got it <3 <3_

Another Saturday night, another Cottage party. This one Quentin had barely resisted going to. Finals week was rapidly approaching, and his stress levels, always significant, were off the fucking charts. Seemed like a good night to get absolutely shitfaced with his friends and hope the alcohol and their company would make him forget his impending catastrophic failure.

The “get absolutely shitfaced” part of the plan was going real well. Margo and Eliot were never paragons of temperance, but they usually insisted that Quentin keep it classy (generally with a few kinda insulting remarks about him being a tiny baby who couldn’t handle his liquor). Tonight they were… doing not that. Quentin wasn’t sure if Eliot was enchanting this bottle of wine to just perpetually be half-full, or if he had a bunch of identical bottles. Maybe he was hiding the empties under the couch. How many would be under there by now? Three? More? Quentin could check, but bending over right now seemed not good unless he wanted to be face down on the floor.

Face down, ass up — he didn’t like it like that usually but maybe Eliot did, maybe that was the key— no. No, he was friends with Eliot. Friends don’t beg friends to fuck them in the ass. He was _not_ going to do that.

This wine was really good.

“Is this a, what is this?” he asked, suddenly unable to remember any kinds of wine except “red” and “tasty”. “‘S good. I llllike it.”

Eliot cracked up, his face splitting into a wide grin. “You are _gone_ , lil Q. Holy shit.”

“Am not,” Quentin protested. Eliot’s face was very big. Eliot’s everything was very big. _Monster,_ Margo had said that one time— stop it. Stop. It. “I can handle myself. Just cause I don’t stuff my face with every new thing that’ll get me high like _you_ do.” He could think of one thing he’d really like to stuff his face with. Might not get him high, but— _stop it_. He flung a hand out at Eliot’s shoulder, connecting sluggishly. “Joking,” he added, suddenly worried. “Sorry. Joke.”

“I’m not offended,” Eliot said. “We all have our vices. I have more than most, maybe.” He reached out and ruffled Quentin’s hair, making Quentin bat at his hand. If Eliot started _touching_ him now he would _lose his mind_. Do something crazy, like— grab his hand and suck on his fingers. God he wanted to do that. Don’t, _don’t_ , keep your _fucking shit together_ , Coldwater. There weren’t _that_ many bottles theoretically under the couch.

“You have the exact right amount, sweetheart,” Margo cooed, reaching across Quentin to pat Eliot’s cheek, “and we love you for them.”

Quentin nodded emphatically. Nodding was safe. It made him dizzy, though, so he stopped after a second, blinking hard in case that could help with the dizziness.

“I’m right up there with you,” Margo continued. “Little more shopping than you, maybe.”

“Only because the fashion industry doesn’t make enough good pieces in my size for it to be a true addiction for me.”

“Still, the expansion charm on my closet says _Margo, clothes are your kryptonite_. What about you, Q?” Margo rested her head on his shoulder, staring up at him with huge dark eyes. “What’s your poison?”

“Wine, looks like,” Quentin said, taking another huge gulp. _Damn_ it was good. If he remembered anything tomorrow morning, he’d have to remember to ask Eliot where he got it.

“Only when we ply you with it,” Eliot teased. “Normally you’re a good little boy.”

“I’m not _little_.” Quentin said, frowning. 

“No, you’re fun-sized,” Margo said. “A perfect little morsel.”

“I’m not _little_ ,” Quentin insisted. His face was hot, was that the wine or the annoyance or the embarrassment? Better have some more wine to cool off just in case. “I’m not, I’m like _less than a year_ younger than either of you, I think. You’re not so much more—” He waved a hand, hoping it would land on whatever word was escaping him. “You’re cool, but you’re not, like— _I know things too_ , you know.”

“Oh?” Eliot leaned forward, sinuous, seductive. Fuck, why could Quentin think of like fifty inappropriate adjectives for the friend he was _going to get over_ but not finish any of his, like, whatevers. Sentences. “Do tell. What kinds of things?”

“Things things,” Quentin said, trying not to make it obvious that he was leaning away from Eliot’s chiseled jawline and flawless hazel eyes towards the relative safety of Margo. “Dirty things.”

“ _Dirty_ things, Margo,” Eliot said. “What do you think Quentin’s version of dirty is? Sex can happen in positions besides missionary?”

“Sometimes it feels _good_ when your girlfriend puts her finger in your _butt_ ,” Margo suggested.

Quentin glared at her, drinking more wine. So much for relative safety. “You guys are real weird friends, you know that?” Wine was his real friend. Wine didn’t act like he’d never seen a dick in his life.

“So tell us,” Margo said. “Prove us wrong. What filthy secrets you got hiding under that cute little vanilla exterior?”

The wine wanted Quentin to say: I’ve got a dick upstairs that’d take you an hour and a gallon of lube to get inside you and it’s my _favorite_. It wanted him to say: I’m apparently making some dude on the internet come on the regular by writing about sucking cock, which I _do_ know all about from _first-hand experience_ , thank you very much. It wanted him to say: my best friend says my descriptions of eating pussy are so hot she has to put a towel down before she can beta my shit—

Wine was _not_ his real friend, he realized. Wine was his enemy. Wine wanted to embarrass him as much as Eliot and Margo. Except Eliot and Margo were the ones _giving_ him the wine, which meant this _whole thing_ was their fault—

“Fuck you,” he found himself saying. Margo blinked and frowned. “No— really. _Fuck_ you. I don’t— you can’t make me fucking, humiliate myself just to prove I’m fucking _cool enough_ to hang out with you.”

“That’s not what—” Eliot started.

“And fuck _you_ , too,” Quentin said, anger fizzing over his skin, chasing away all the happy-numb-drunk feelings. “You just— I can’t be here. I can’t, I have to—” He stood up, swayed a little, flung a hand out to try and steady himself on the back of the couch — and found Eliot’s hands on his arm instead, one on his wrist and one on his bicep, grabbing firmly but gently to keep him upright and so _big_ and so _warm_ — “ _No_ ,” he said emphatically, pulling himself out of Eliot’s grip. Eliot looked sad. Quentin felt suddenly sad because Eliot was sad but also because he was just sad in general, everything was— everything was wrong, and sad. 

“‘M going to bed,” he told his friends. Maybe friends. His couch people. “Bye.”

He had to concentrate hard on not running into anything on his way across the common room and up the stairs, so if either of them tried to follow him, he didn’t notice.

* * *

Margo timed it perfectly: the coffee had just finished brewing when Quentin stumbled downstairs the next morning. He appeared in the kitchen doorway, his eyes barely open. He squinted into the sunlight and stopped dead when he saw her, then started to slowly shuffle his way around to go back the way he came.

“Q, hey,” Margo said. “Get in here. Sit down.”

Quentin hesitated. Margo grabbed his favorite mug out of the dish drainer, though, the one with a little cartoon dinosaur holding a teapot and the caption Tea Rex, and filled it with coffee, and he took a step into the kitchen and made his way over to the table.

“You’ll need this,” she said briskly, setting the mug down in front of him. “And this.” She pulled a little red vial out of the pocket of her joggers and put it down as well.

Quentin’s face was more or less one giant frown line right now, but she was pretty sure he frowned extra hard at the vial. “What’s that?”

“An extremely effective, extremely expensive hangover cure,” Margo said, pouring herself a coffee. “My apology to you for getting you shithoused last night.”

She sat down across from him right as he swallowed the contents of the vial. As expected, his eyes shot open, his whole face spasming wildly. “Gyuhh,” he said. “Blerg, that’s—”

“Ten gallons of ass in a two-teaspoon serving? Yeah. Works, though.” 

“It really does,” Quentin said, blinking. He shook his head abruptly, then picked up his coffee and started to stand. “Well, that was, um, thanks—”

“Wait one more second, would you?” Margo smiled tightly at him. “That was my apology for getting you drunk. This is my apology for being a total cunt.”

Quentin slowly sank back down into his seat. “I wouldn’t— I don’t know if I’d say you were—”

“Well no, _you_ wouldn’t. You’re too nice for that. And also if you ever call a woman a cunt I am legally allowed to kill you, that’s the rules of feminism.” Quentin almost smiled at that, albeit kind of nervously. “We were both complete dickwads last night, El and me, but it was mostly my fault. I put him up to it. You’re not boring, and you don’t have to prove shit to us.”

“Oh,” Quentin said. He took a long drink of his coffee, frowning a little. “Why did you…?”

“Because I’m a dumb cock, like I said.” She rolled her eyes, letting her legit embarrassment show on her face. “We thought if we got you wasted enough, we could get you loosened up, get some information out of you. I’ve been dancing around trying to trick you into telling me whether or not you write Fillory fanfic instead of just ovarying up and asking you. Real fucking middle school shit.” 

Quentin froze with his mug halfway to his lips. “Uh,” he said. “Um. Why?”

Margo shrugged. “Just had a hunch. Always fun to meet a fellow fan writer out in the real world. You don’t actually have to tell me, you’ve earned your fucking privacy at this point,” she added. “But if you want to, I’m still curious.”

“You, uh—” Quentin was staring at her like she’d turned into a dragon. “You also— I mean—”

“I also,” Margo said, nodding, suppressing the thrill of triumph. Fucking _called_ it.

“Oh,” Quentin said again. “Oh.” He laughed, his face breaking into a real smile. “This is— that’s a fucking dumb reason to have a fight, huh?” He took a big swig of his coffee. “Oh, uh, yeah, I do. Obviously.”

“Anything I would have read?” Margo asked, feeling like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. God, she really was a dumb cock. She should’ve just asked him fucking weeks ago.

“Uh, I doubt it,” Quentin said, hiding half his face behind his mug under the guise of taking another sip. “It’s, uh.” He took his time swallowing his mouthful of coffee. “Mostly porn,” he muttered, when Margo just kept staring him down.

Margo laughed, delighted. “And what, you think I don’t read that kinda filth? I _write_ it, baby.”

“Yeah, but like.” Quentin was blushing, his eyes darting to the side like there was some kind of escape hatch from this conversation. “It’s like. I don’t know. _Vices_ is definitely the right category, it’s kinda fucked up.”

“My favorite kind,” Margo said. “The weirder the better. Last week I beta’d a fic for a friend of mine where Rupert fucked a centaur, except the centaur had a human-half dick _and_ a horse-half dick.”

Quentin jumped, spilling coffee onto the table, and Margo immediately worried she’d broken his little brain. He was staring at her wide-eyed, though, not at the hot liquid gradually spreading over the wood. “Uh,” he said. “Uh. You, um. Uh— what’s your screenname?”

Margo looked at him sidelong. “Jane the Destroyer,” she said slowly.

“You’re fucking with me,” Quentin blurted out. “You’re— are you—”

“Why the fuck would I be fucking with you?” This conversation had gotten weird in a way Margo wasn’t really enjoying.

“Fuck— I— _what_ ,” Quentin told the ceiling, throwing his head back. “ _Fuck_.” He laughed, a high-pitched, delirious giggle, then he looked right at her perplexed face, grinning widely and reached out across the table, holding his hand out for a handshake.

“Hi,” he said. “Nice to meet you. I’m Makepeace.”

Margo’s jaw dropped. “Get the fuck out.”

“Not even kidding.”

“Get the _fuck_ out, you’re—”

“Yep.” Quentin laughed again, putting his head in his hands, then abruptly realized he’d just put his elbows in spilled coffee. “Ah, fuck—”

“Fuck that,” Margo said, shoving back her chair and moving her hands in the quickest cleaning tut she knew. Quentin’s sleeves were abruptly dry, although they also looked a little bit pink. He was looking curiously at them when she made it around the table and basically tackled him in a hug, throwing her arms around his neck.

“Oof,” he said, hugging her back tight. “Jesus, I can’t— I literally— I have lost the ability to can.”

“You sneaky motherfucker,” she said, now really understanding that delirious giggle. She could feel one bubbling up in her own chest. “You really— _that’s_ why you went AWOL for like a month, you didn’t have your fucking computer—”

“—just like you did last year,” Quentin finished for her. He’d started to squirm in her grip, so she let him go and got back in her own chair. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him smiling this big, certainly not while sober. “Oh my god. This is fucking _insane_.”

“Wait, whoa, okay,” Margo said, puzzle pieces falling together in her head. “So, pretty friend—”

Quentin’s eyes widened. “Oh my god,” he said faintly. “Uh. I— guess I can’t convince you that’s uh. Not who you think it is?”

“Not a fucking chance,” Margo crowed. “Oh my _fucking_ god.”

“Don’t tell him,” Quentin said desperately. “Please, Margo, you fucking— _please_ don’t. I’ve been, I’m trying to get over it, it’s not a big deal—”

“Oh no,” Margo said, “it’s a big fucking deal. I’m not gonna tell him,” she said as Quentin spluttered, going pale, “but you should. That’s the info _he_ was trying to get out of you last night. If you were interested.”

“Uh,” Quentin said, remaining pale for a moment, then starting to flush bright pink. “He, um.”

“Wants to bend you over and rail you so good you forget your own name? Yup.” Margo took a satisfied sip of her coffee. Fucking shitballs, she fucking loved being right.

“Uh,” Quentin said again. His hand groped blindly for his coffee mug, and he took a shaky sip. “Okay. Um. This is— I’m processing like, a _lot_ of information right now.” He looked up sharply. “Wait, so does Eliot um. Does he know? About you? Writing fic? Because maybe we should just, we could maybe not tell him, uh, about me. That could be uh, I feel like that might be weirder than he bargained for.”

“It’s maybe a little late for that,” Margo said slowly, more puzzle pieces slotting themselves together to make truly the most hilarious picture she’d ever seen. “I _may_ have been trying to help with his tragic case of blue balls by feeding him a steady diet of my online bff’s porn these past few months.”

“Uh,” said Quentin.

“You know that anonymous commenter—”

“Oh my god.”

“The one with like, zero boundaries?”

“Oh my _god_.” Quentin looked like he might throw up. “He— he said he’d—”

“Deep breaths, babe,” Margo said. She did another cleaning charm on the table top, this one a little slower but with less collateral damage. Quentin looked at her gratefully, then rested his forehead gingerly on the table, following instructions. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“I have,” Quentin said, “so many questions. About everything. And I can’t actually think of any of them.”

“It’s still early and you were hung over like ten minutes ago,” Margo pointed out. “You’ll get there.”

Half an hour later they’d basically recapped their entire online friendship, interspersed with a lot of “You mean that was—!” and “Are you fucking kidding me—!”, when the stairs gave a telltale creak and Eliot stumbled into the kitchen. He blinked at them, both nearly in tears laughing about a fight Margo had gotten into a few years back with some rabid Rupert/Watcher Woman shippers, and crossed the room with his hands stretched out towards the coffee pot like the caffeine-addled zombie he was.

“You two are fucking chummy this morning,” he grumbled. “Not to mention _loud_.”

“Sorry,” Margo said, not sorry at all. “We’ve been having fun while you’ve been getting your beauty rest.”

“It’s too early for fun.”

“It’s like, almost two PM,” Quentin said. Eliot turned to look at him, coffee in hand, and he shrank back in his chair a little, swallowing hard. “Um.” He glanced at Margo, who raised a not-so-subtle eyebrow at him: _get ‘em, tiger_. “Well, since all my embarrassing dirty laundry is coming out this morning,” Quentin muttered. “Hey, uh, Eliot.”

“Hey,” Eliot said, eyebrows up around his hairline.

“Do you maybe wanna like.” Quentin took a huge deep breath. “Grab coffee sometime? I guess?”

Eliot looked from the coffee in his hand, to the empty mug in Quentin’s, clearly not registering what was happening. Margo watched with rapt attention, wishing she had popcorn.

“Sure?” Eliot said slowly. “Why—”

“We don’t have to,” Quentin said hurriedly. “Or like, it doesn’t have to be coffee, or— I mean, we’re friends already, right? So do we just like— skip straight to making out?”

Eliot choked, spraying coffee out in front of him. “What,” he said, then coughed. “What—”

“That doesn’t mean no,” Margo reassured Quentin breathlessly. Fuck, her _sides_ hurt she was laughing so hard. “He’s just confused. And you can take it slower than that, babes. Make it a longfic, not a drabble.”

“What,” Eliot repeated. “Bambi, what— am I actually awake? What are you _talking_ about?”

“It’s okay, beautiful,” Margo said, wiping her eyes. “Mama will explain it all. Sit down. It’s a fucking wild ride.”

_janethedestroyer replied to a LiveJournal entry “GUESS WHAT” in which makepeace said:_

_LOOK WHO I FINALLY MET IN REAL LIFE!!!!_

_[selfie.jpg]_

_< 3 <3 <3 <3 <3_

_The reply was:_

_Oh my god I told you to delete this picture you dick, my hair is a DISASTER lmfao. although i guess not as much of a disaster as El’s so actually, we’re good._

_( <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 love you)_

**Author's Note:**

> SO MANY THANK YOUS to:
> 
> the entire Peaches & Plums server for cheering me on and putting up with me posting a zillion snippets of this while it was in progress
> 
> Christa for coming up with the title and Margo's screenname and for frequent cheerleading
> 
> Kate for coming up with Quentin's screenname
> 
> Aud for the centaur thing (and many other suggestions)
> 
> and as always Sylph for betaing and being fucking awesome in every way


End file.
